Posted 06 December 2014

New video shows the staggering size of No Man’s Sky

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Hello PlayStation Blog! I’m Sean from Hello Games, and I’m having a bit of a crazy weekend here in Vegas!

A year ago today we first revealed our game called No Man’s Sky. These 12 months have been life changing for all of us at our little studio. Your response to what we’re making has been inspiring, affirming, and only sometimes totally terrifying. But in the best way. :)

We’ve only shown the game off twice, once at the Spike VGX Awards last year, and then again at E3. Since E3 we’ve been working incredibly hard, and I know some people are keen to see more of the game.

No Man’s Sky is a science fiction game, set in an infinite procedural universe. It’s a hard game to summarise sometimes, so I always want us to release direct gameplay, to just capture moments from the game, without lots of cuts. Yesterday at The Gaming Awards we gave a glimpse of more gameplay.

I’m also incredibly excited to announce that 65daysofstatic, probably my favourite band, are going to be writing a new album of music inspired by NMS. Their music has always provided the soundtrack to everything we’ve shown so far, and we’re going to collaborate to create a unique generative soundscape for the game.

The universe you explore in No Man’s Sky is limitless… infinite. Today, at PlayStation Experience, we really wanted to show you what that scale looks like for the first time. Something that I hope will give you a sense of the extent of the galaxy, and your place in it.

So here’s a new video, taken directly from a playthrough session:

The music from that video is the first track from the new album from 65daysofstatic. Hope you like it.

If all that wasn’t enough, we’re holding something special tonight for the fans. An event that everyone can experience with us. We’re calling it A Night Under No Man’s Sky.

If you’re here at PlayStation Experience, you can come along to Sands Expo Hall A, or if you’re at home you can watch the stream on Twitch.

It’s been a lot to pull together for a very small indie team, but we’re having a lot of fun. We really hope you enjoy it too. Thanks so much! Find out more here.

It’s been said before that every game developer who see this is beating themselves for not doing it.Man I do agree, this is like my childhood dream, my love for gaming coming together in a beautiful crescendo of pure love to gaming.

I think there’ll be resource gathering, some combat (there’ll be pirates, creatures and other stuff) but, yeah, it’s MOSTLY exploration. Like, if I had to guess, 70% or more of the game will be just that.

The videos so far clearly show ammo counters so there’s combat too. I’d be interested to know if there’s diplomacy and trading as well. Been wanting something to fill in Freelancer for years and don’t have the time or inclination to build a PC for Elite or Star Citizen.

We’ve been hearing about this game for over a year now, we definitely don’t want this to be something like Watch Dogs or Destiny which was hyped for over two years and fell a little flat or worse, something like DriveClub where it was hyped for years then released broken with half the feature set missing (and still missing months later)

Also, as Hello Games are English, can you please ensure that this game is priced fairly in the UK and Europe without the 60% price difference vs the US that has become customary this gen?

That’s the whole point of an indie. Physical distribution cost a hell of a lot more. Everything needs to be created physically, distributed, there’s always extra stock that has not been sold yet, etc. That’s where a publisher comes in but the publisher first needs to want to publish it and that usually means them sticking their ugly noses in everything. Playstation gives indies the freedom to publish their own stuff straight to PSN without all those restrictions.

Games that have retail releases need to cost more than retail because if they were the same or more then retailers wouldn’t stock the physical ones and the game would bomb. We see this now with PC games and already saw it with PSP Go and to a lesser extent the Vita.

Digital only games however really should be cheaper than they often are, that’s just a case of it takes “X” number of sales at price “Y” to break even so charge “Z” to make sure.

What I don’t get though is why this protection of retail doesn’t exist in the US where games routinely cost less on PSN because PSN doesn’t charge tax. Seems to me that our digital prices are covering their shortfall, we are in effect subsidising their prices. Hences rheirbsales are generally 50% or even 75% while ours are generally 10-20%

As far as I am concerned this has to be the most perfectly thought out adventure ever. Think about it people the game masters of Hello Games are bringing us and their selves we all “Gamers” an experience that borders no no that is ……… infinite. Think Birderlands weapon creation system and apply it to the universe. That is a real adventure.

So let me be the first to say “Thank You “in advance to Hello Games because not only are you doing something that the so so game developing company’s have failed to do the last I don’t know how many years but to do it with your best and promise better.Some of the post here make no sense why would you place a kind of hype on something we are clearly seeing as being everything its says it is type is used for things that are in the shadow when you have little to no information.

What this development team is telling us is you will discover everything …..or as much as can be discovered in the infinite traverses of space. Not even Mass Effect, EVE o...

As far as I am concerned this has to be the most perfectly thought out adventure ever. Think about it people the game masters of Hello Games are bringing us and their selves we all “Gamers” an experience that borders no no that is ……… infinite. Think Birderlands weapon creation system and apply it to the universe. That is a real adventure.

So let me be the first to say “Thank You “in advance to Hello Games because not only are you doing something that the so so game developing company’s have failed to do the last I don’t know how many years but to do it with your best and promise better.Some of the post here make no sense why would you place a kind of hype on something we are clearly seeing as being everything its says it is type is used for things that are in the shadow when you have little to no information.

What this development team is telling us is you will discover everything …..or as much as can be discovered in the infinite traverses of space. Not even Mass Effect, EVE or any game for that matter console or PC deliver this kind of adventure Minecraft comes close but close don’t cut building is one thing and even that is finite.

Be glad that gamers careabout gamers or we would never have this masterpiece this jewel this this ………… Infinity Gauntlet.Think about it it has everything the Infinity Gauntlet it has space it has time it has reality it even has power and most of all you can see it has soul so prepare to put it on and just go………….Explorer, fight, record or whatever this is going to be ” THE” game people ask for next gen here it is forget destiny forget Skyrim and just cause even Batman those are finite we look towards the Infinite. Phil-O-Mac10

I am just wondering… Maybe it is lack of my knowledge but shouldn’t landing take MUCH longer? Surely it’s a game and it’s not realistic, but assuming that atmosphere has about 1000-5000km and velocity cannot be too great because of friction (even neglecting angle of landing!) it should take at least few minutes… Of course it might not be beneficial for gamers to “waste” time this way, but srlsy, few seconds? Or maybe it’s sped up?

And what about escape velocity? Creatures walk and probably breathe so the gravity is considerably strong and yet spaceships lift off like it’s nothing at all. Few second and they’re on another planet?

Anyway, I hope the game will manage to satisfy all of expectations and hype they create ;)

The whole landing and take off thing can be dismissed by repulsor drive technology as used in Star Wars and countless other science fiction stories. Basically an energy field disperses the atmosphere around the ship so that there is effectively no fritction, same applies to escape velocity.

Hello Games have already said that they’re explaining planetary gravity having no effect on the player thanks technology built into our suits that effectively adapts to the higher or lower gravity of the planet and compensated accordingly so I imagine whatever lore this universe will have will contain whatever miraculous technology is required to push physics out of the way of fun, which is exactly what a good developer should to.

Actually I think you may miss the point here. Of course there must be some sort of technology such as warp and repulsor engines, it’s science fiction after all and I’m not arguing with that, but… If you take Star Wars into consideration, as you did, please notice that spaceships take quite some time before they actually land and take off. It may be skipped in movies and even if it’s not skipped entirely they fly for minutes. It’s at least 1000 km of atmosphere! How fast would you need to travel to land within few mere seconds? And would you actually stop in time not to crash? What about bigger units? Also if you take a look at SW3 they actually burn in the atmosphere ;).

And what about this neglecting suit… When you leave spaceship and start to walk, there will be no difference at all? No matter whether you land on moon or Jupiter? This is where the whole fun is…

I love space “simulators”, but when I think about this particular one, I’m starting to feel a little frightened with such...

Actually I think you may miss the point here. Of course there must be some sort of technology such as warp and repulsor engines, it’s science fiction after all and I’m not arguing with that, but… If you take Star Wars into consideration, as you did, please notice that spaceships take quite some time before they actually land and take off. It may be skipped in movies and even if it’s not skipped entirely they fly for minutes. It’s at least 1000 km of atmosphere! How fast would you need to travel to land within few mere seconds? And would you actually stop in time not to crash? What about bigger units? Also if you take a look at SW3 they actually burn in the atmosphere ;).

And what about this neglecting suit… When you leave spaceship and start to walk, there will be no difference at all? No matter whether you land on moon or Jupiter? This is where the whole fun is…

I love space “simulators”, but when I think about this particular one, I’m starting to feel a little frightened with such “improvements”. If they neglect gravity, what about fight physics? Rockets? Blasts? These are strongly connected with gravity, velocity etc ;).